Boricua pride | Culture & Community | East Rock | Arts & Culture | Wilbur Cross High School | Arts & Anti-racism | Puerto Ricans United, Inc.
Miss Puerto Rico of Greater New Haven Alanna D. Herbert and Junior Miss Puerto Rico of Greater New Haven Lysella Pujols. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Alanna Herbert tilted her head back, the sound of horns swelling around her as she found her light. In one universe, she was in the middle of Washington Heights, celebrating an impromptu “Carnaval del Barrio” as summer heat rose off the pavement. In another, she swirled through time and space in a blur of red, an audience of over 200 in front of her. On her shoulders, she carried the legacy of her grandmother and the town of Cayey.
Saturday, Herbert was one of 12 to compete for Miss Puerto Rico of Greater New Haven at Wilbur Cross High School, in a now-annual cultural pageant that returned to the city last year. Hosted by Puerto Ricans United, Inc., the hours-long event brought together young Puerto Ricans from across the region, showing the breadth and depth of a diaspora for nearly five hours. Over 200 attended, many waving tiny Puerto Rican flags and blue-and-red posters as they cheered contestants on.
Five girls competed in the junior miss category and seven competed in the miss category. In addition to Herbert, a junior at Common Ground High School, East Rock Magnet School student Lysella Pujols snagged the crown for Junior Miss Puerto Rico of Greater New Haven. Herbert represented the town of Cayey and Pujols represented San Juan.
Top: Samary Polnett and Anika Russell. Bottom: Participants learned bomba in the months leading up to Saturday's event.
“It’s tradition. It’s culture,” said Samary Polnett, a former Miss Puerto Rico herself who ran this year’s pageant alongside Anika Russell. “There’s always a lot of love that goes into today. For me, it was a place that I looked for inspiration, and I want to be able to share that with these girls.”
“We are giving them an experience,” she added. “We are bringing Puerto Rico here.”
That journey has spanned several months in community theaters, dance studios, quiet high school classrooms and at kitchen tables stacked with paints, markers, and sewing supplies. Starting in mid-January, all 12 contestants began meeting weekly at Bregamos Community Theater, gathering to learn cultural history, art, and traditional forms of dance and movement.
One week, they might be learning bomba from Kelvia Flores and Kevin Diaz. The next would be dedicated to financial literacy. The next, a lesson in Puerto Rican history from cultural champion Maritza Rosa. As pageant day grew closer, each contestant also honed a talent, from instrumental music and original monologues to salsa and bomba routines completed in traditional costume. Each researched a town or city on the island, designing a gown or outfit to reflect the place’s history and culture.
Top: 13-year-old Nataliya Santana. Bottom: Kalani Santiago and her cousin, Yahaira Malavet.
As Saturday afternoon arrived, Wilbur Cross buzzed with activity, its hallways transformed into dressing rooms and practice runways. Inside a repurposed art classroom, junior miss contestants made last-minute tweaks to their hair and makeup, some pausing to collect themselves before heading toward the stage. Every so often, a mom or cousin hustled through the doorway, clearly on a mission with an ironing board or makeup brush in hand.
Inside, 13-year-old Nataliya Santana was getting in the zone. An eighth grader at Saint Martin de Porres Academy, Santana joined the pageant as a nod to the matriarchs in her family, who still maintain a home in Coamo that is over a century old. At school, she said, there aren’t a lot of other Puerto Rican students, and when she expressed her identity, “I get shut down.” It was important to her to learn more about her culture.
“I’ve never visited Puerto Rico, but it is my dream,” she said, sharing snippets of the original poem she was preparing to read during the day’s talent portion. “We like to express ourselves very differently. We are unique. We are colorful. We are vibrant.”
Nearby, 13-year-old Kalani Santiago closed her eyes as her cousin, Yahaira Malavet, applied a dusting of eye shadow. Born in Yauco, Santiago came to Connecticut when she was seven. Her family travels back as often as possible, she said—which isn’t often enough. She was excited to join the pageant because it reminded her of home. The bomba lessons, for instance, felt like attending elementary school on the island all over again.
Top: Miriam Magalis Cruz,. Bottom: Herbert. “It helps me build on my connection as a Puerto Rican and an American," she said.
Down the hall, Herbert was putting the final touches on her first outfit, a shiny blue dress with rhinestones on the collar and strappy gold shoes to match. When she entered the pageant for the second time this year, she said, representing Cayey was a no-brainer. Last summer, she was able to visit the city, whence her great-grandmother and grandmother hail.
“It feels great,” she added of the pageant. A junior at Common Ground High School, Herbert identifies as Afro-Borucua, and saw Miss Puerto Rico as a chance to show audiences that there isn’t one way to look or act Puerto Rican. “It helps me build on my connection as a Puerto Rican and an American.”
Many of the contestants also pointed to the friendships they’ve made. Representing Río Piedras, junior miss Milani Nunez Valentin said she was excited to take the stage, and grateful for the new friends she had made during the months leading up to the pageant. While she’d entered “to learn more about my culture and heritage,” she’d also found a group of fellow Puerto Ricans that she plans to stay in touch with.
Top: Milani Nunez Valentin prepares for the opening of the pageant. She later played a sax cover of Marc Anthony's "Preciosa." Bottom: Miss Puerto Rico contestant Taina Angeliz Torres Pineiro, a student at East Haven High School. Her outfit above represents the history of Toa Baja, which she represented.
Her older sister, Leislani Nunez, also competed. During the talent portion of the show, she awed the audience with a salsa dance choreographed specifically for the pageant, delighting the audience as her arms and legs bounced to the beat of Marc Anthony’s “Flor Palida.”
“I think that they have grown to love their culture and get a deeper understanding of their heritage,” said their mom, Anaïs Nunez. “They have also been able to create a sisterhood. It’s not a competition. It’s more of a family.”
Outside, chatter rose in the school’s hallways as attendees rolled in, and several shops set up tables with food and small business information. Magaly Cajigas, a board member for Puerto Ricans United and member of the city’s Cultural Affairs Commission, said she was excited for the day’s festivities. In 1992, Cajigas herself was crowned Miss Puerto Rico of Greater New Haven, and sees the title as “a huge responsibility,” she said.
“It’s a cultural pageant, but it’s like these girls are applying for a job,” she said, praising Russell and Polnett for the work they put into building the pageant. “All of them have put in a lot of time and effort, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into the competition. These young ladies start in a cocoon stage and by the time they come to the end, they’re butterflies.”
Top: Daisy Irizarry, representing Ponce. Bottom: Sound School student Yulianet Nevarez, representing Peñuelas, plays a cello cover of “La Borinqueña.”
As the curtains opened moments later, those words came to life over and over again, often capturing the sheer amount of work contestants put into the pageant. To blaring music, all 12 joined each other in a dazzling swirl of red and blue, limbs flying as they danced into the competition. It wasn’t long before each took a moment in the spotlight, introducing the municipalities they represented.
“You have to be loud and proud of where you come from and who you are,” 19-year-old Daisy Irizziray (a.k.a. Miss Ponce) had said just moments before. Now, her words came to life, outgoing queens Miriam Magalis Cruz and Alianys Ayala all smiles as they danced together for the last time. Behind them, a vivid set piece from artist David Sepulveda brought the island to New Haven.
Nowhere was that sense of Puerto Rico—and what it means to be Boricua—clearer than during the pageant’s talent portion, during which contestants performed poetry, dance, music and theater for a panel of judges that remained reserved, jotting down scrupulous notes from one act to the next. In between acts, emcees Jhonnathan Rivera and Lakisha Malave kept the momentum going with stories of their own upbringings.
The audience included Dr. Madeline Negrón, who grew up in Puerto Rico and is the first Latina to be NHPS Superintendent.
Taking the stage early in the afternoon, Pujols set the tone, adding interpretive movement to a monologue and music by Ednita Nazario. As images of Puerto Rico appeared on a screen behind her, she began to move, her limbs fluid as they extended, retreated, then came back to cover her heart. It was the prelude to routines in salsa, bomba, and drama that filled the school’s auditorium with sound that got the audience clapping.
Myriam Ayala (a.k.a. Miss Coamo) kept it going as she performed to “White-ish,” which debuted at the Ya Tu Sabes Monologue Slam (read the full text here). A student at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School (Co-Op), Ayala captured what many of her peers had noted before going onto the stage—that they live in a sort of in-between space, told that they are too white to be Latina, and too Latina to be white. In reality, they just want to exist as they are.
Everybody listen up! Her voice was clear, crisp as it floated over the audience. I’m white-ish! She took a step forward, even her feet tentative as her red gown glowed. I don’t like certain foods, and that is okay. I speak multiple languages, and that is okay. A beat, in which it seemed like the whole audience was on the edge of its seats. A ruby pendant glinted on her neck. I don’t need you to understand me. I am who I am, and that is okay.
Top: Jaliyah Griswold. Bottom: Myriam Ayala.
Others kept it bright, teasing out some of the cultural differences that exist for Puerto Ricans between the Caribbean island and the chilly, perennially wet and gray Northeast. Performing a monologue that she wrote herself, Wintergreen Magnet School student Jaliyah Griswold (a.k.a. Junior Miss Patillas) bemoaned the lack of a proper Puerto Rican Christmas, drawing laughs and applause as she launched into her “Letter To My Abuelita.”
Seated at a desk in pajamas, Griswold read aloud, nearly tsk-tsking at the paucity of Parrandas and Día de los Reyes celebrations in her new home state. She wished that Connecticut appreciated a month-long Christmas season, and appreciative laughter rose from rows of chairs where audience members sat. She announced that she missed her grandmother, and attendees nodded back knowingly.
When she ran off stage with the letter flapping in one hand, the audience burst into applause. “We really get the most out of the holidays,” she said in an interview after the performance.
That levity flowed through Herbert’s cover of “Carnaval del Barrio,” from Lin Manuel-Miranda’s Broadway musical In The Heights. In the song, Washington Heights has lost power, and salon owner Daniela has encouraged her neighbors to party in the hot summer streets. It becomes a back-and-forth with the character Carla, Herbert collapsing identities as she performed both parts. As she spun around a table with a Greca, maracas and drums, the ruffles on her dress swished to and fro.
Others wowed the audience with poetry. As she approached the mic, Santiago cleared her throat, and launched into “Yaucana Soy,” written for the competition with the help of her grandmother, Mama Gloria. As she narrated—”Through thick and thin/Until I die/I will always/Wear your flag with pride”—several murmurs of approval rippled through the audience. When the line “Yo Soy Boricua” flowed over the crowd, the response of “Pa' Que Tu Lo Sepas” was nearly immediate.
Top: A vejigante makes an appearance. Bottom: Kalani Santiago with Yauco's crest of arms embroidered onto her dress.
By a 10-minute intermission, contestants seemed to have shaken off the pre-show jitters, some of them nibbling at Sol Bowls and fruit cups as they changed into long skirts for an ensemble bomba number. In two art classrooms, evening gowns hung glimmering on tables and chairs, waiting for an upcoming category.
Several culturally relevant costumes, all designed by the contestants, waited eagerly for their moment in the spotlight. There were hours to go, and contestants were just getting started.
Among them, conversation wove past tables and over upturned stools. Pujols, her red lipstick shining, stepped out into the hallway to rehearse her walk. Checking her dress a final time, Griswold beamed, then paused as if to take stock of the moment.
“Everyone has been so amazing,” she said, looking around the room. She took a beat, and then checked the time. The next act would be starting any minute. She smiled nervously, and then headed for the stage.